Craig Batty SCREENPLAYS how to write and sell them www.noexit.co.uk ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To family, friends and students who’ve played their part in the making of this book. In particular, to RMIT students in the Anatomy of a Screenplay class, who were both insightful and inspiring. To Hannah for commissioning the book, and to Anne for doing a brilliant job editing it. To all the great screenwriters and filmmakers out there who’ve given me wonderful material to write about. And to all the book’s readers – may it serve you well. CONTENTS Title Page Acknowledgements Introduction 1. THE NATURE OF SCREENWRITING Just a working document? Layout Form A film about screenwriting 2. FINDING IDEAS Sourcing ideas What’s in an idea? Knowing when an idea’s ready 3. DEVELOPING IDEAS Where to start? Development documents 4. CREATING A WORLD Building your world Case studies 5. SHAPING CHARACTERS Inner character Backstory Outer character Protagonism and antagonism Cast design Minor characters 6. DESIGNING A STRUCTURE Character journeys Three-act structure The inciting incident Case study Tentpoles Sequences Alternative structures 7. WRITING VISUALLY Thinking visually Visual grammar Setting Visual objects and motifs 8. UNDERSTANDING GENRE Who is genre for? Genre – or style, or form? Writing genre 9. WORKING WITH THEME Defining theme Theme in action 10. CONSTRUCTING SCENES Finding a scene’s purpose Driving a scene Scenes and story texture Writing screen directions 11. WRITING DIALOGUE Stripping down Character voice Subtext The key phrase Key lines Voiceover 12. SELLING YOUR SCREENPLAY Pitching documents Thinking strategically Finding funding 13. SELLING YOURSELF AS A SCREENWRITER Career planning Promoting yourself as a screenwriter 14. SURVIVING AS A SCREENWRITER First steps Joining forces Writers’ events Conclusion and Resources Copyright INTRODUCTION Oh no, not another screenwriting book! And that’s just what I thought. But then, when I thought about it some more, I realised we do need good screenwriting books; that, in fact, there’s quite a shortage of them. While there may be hundreds on the market, few of them actually speak to the writer, telling them instead what they should and shouldn’t be doing. What’s missing is a sense of conversation, a sense that the author knows what the writer’s trying to do, and so speaks to them in a way that’s helpful and personal, as well as insightful. I want this book to speak to you as a writer, to connect with what you’re going through – good or bad – as you develop your screenplay, and to inspire you to move forward, helping you to find solutions that you’re happy with and that you believe in. Above all, I want this book to be a guide that you come back to again and again, if not for help with a specific screenplay problem, then as a guilty pleasure – perhaps reminding you that, yes, you do know what you’re doing. And I use the word guide intentionally here. It’s not a rule book. Nor is it a set of principles, techniques, tricks, tips, etc. Over the last nine years, I’ve worked with lots of screenwriters, student screenwriters, professional screenwriters, emerging screenwriters, and people who write screenplays as a hobby. I’ve read lots of screenplays and screen ideas (treatments, outlines) – at least a thousand – and I’ve discovered that I love working with screenwriters on their screenplays. Writing your own material is one thing – and I love that, too – but to work closely with someone on their idea is something else. There’s a buzz that comes from talking about characters, plots, themes, visual images and dialogue – it’s like chatting to your friends about a film when you come out of the cinema, only better. There’s even more of a frisson when you can see the passion rising in a writer; when you can see them getting excited about their screenplay, and talking about it with much more verve. And here’s the thing: the best buzz of all comes from seeing a writer suddenly make the leap into finding their own solutions. They’ve ‘got’ what they’ve been trying to achieve, and suddenly they fly. As a guide, a mentor, you get real satisfaction from this moment. I’ve also written a lot about screenwriting. Some of you might be familiar with my first book, Writing for the Screen: Creative and Critical Approaches (2008), which was written with Zara Waldebäck. The response to that has been really positive. Not because we’re saying things that are explicitly new, but because we wrote it in a way that was intended to be helpful and inspiring. We touched on the idea of creativity, too, and how often in screenwriting training there’s a lack of attention paid to the creative process – it’s all about craft, technique and industry. Although these things are very important, they’re nothing without creativity. A screenwriter is a creative writer, after all. So we decided to follow this up with a second book, The Creative Screenwriter: Exercises to Expand Your Craft (2012). Quite different in tone and format, this book offers a plethora of creative writing exercises intended to deepen the screenwriter’s understanding of key aspects of screenwriting – character, structure, theme, dialogue, pitching, developing ideas, etc. I also wrote the book Movies That Move Us: Screenwriting and the Power of the Protagonist’s Journey (2011), which, in essence, develops Christopher Vogler’s famous Hero’s Journey model to take into account both the physical and the emotional journey experienced by a protagonist. There’s quite a lot of theory in that book, but there are six case studies of famous films that highlight the points I’m making. Vogler himself endorsed the book, which was very nice. I don’t expect everyone to agree with my ideas – how boring life would be if they did – and I know that there will be things I’ve missed or seen differently to others. But I’m certain there will be something in this book that will connect with you; something that will make you see and understand screenwriting in a different way than before. I’ll not see the recognition in your eyes – the passion rising – but I’ll know it’s there. So, I hope you find this book useful, and I hope you enjoy it. In the end, we write because we get pleasure from it. There are times when we utterly despise our art – we can’t get the plot right, the character doesn’t sound right and nobody likes the screenplay – but we only despise it because we love it so much. And, because we get so much joy out of it, we want it to be perfect, and we want others to enjoy it, too. Rather than seeing this book as a chore, then – something you’ve got to read for university, or plough through to see where you might be going wrong – try to relish working through the material. Let it guide your own thoughts and feelings about good screenwriting. Have fun thinking of your own examples. And, where it feels appropriate, enjoy having your own alternative readings, or the fact that you disagree with what I’ve said! 1. THE NATURE OF SCREENWRITING A few years ago, when I was delivering a workshop on creativity at the London Screenwriters’ Festival, three men walked out. As they left, one of them mumbled something along the lines of, ‘This is ridiculous… creativity’s got nothing to do with screenwriting.’ Maybe it was the way I was pitching it – though I’d only been talking for about five minutes – but creativity and screenwriting not connecting? Being creative having nothing to do with screenwriting? Well, actually, this is a view that many people have. But it’s wrong. Screenwriting is creative writing. It’s perhaps got more of a business slant to it than other kinds of fiction, but it’s still creative writing. And it’s through developing creativity that a screenwriter can make a film leap from being formulaic to formidable. For those who stayed in the workshop – about 40 of them – we proved that, by thinking ‘outside the box’, ideas were strengthened and stories became more engaging and original. Some of the writers realised that their ideas had to be abandoned in favour of new ones that emerged – but that’s what it’s all about. After all, who wants to stick with an idea just for the sake of it, when there’s a better one out there waiting to be tackled? Nevertheless, a common perception is that screenwriting is driven by business. In one way, it is – there’s a lot of money involved usually, and many more people needed to make a film possible, which of course brings with it financial risks. The development of a screenplay also leans more towards the business-driven model, with more people vying for their voice to be heard, and more ‘at stake’ when people like the director and financier get involved. All of this is important, and screenwriters should know about these kinds of factors, but that doesn’t mean that creativity should be sidelined. Being a screenwriter is still about being creative. It’s about having the ability to see things in different and interesting ways and, when the going gets tough, being able to find creative solutions to problems – your problems or other people’s problems (which you might